[Paul Stephen C.]

It's an oldie but a goodie. When to upgrade?

I have a 1 Ghz G4 iMac which does everything absolutely fine for me, except it's somewhat slow and creaky running Garageband. I've maxed the (Apple) RAM to 1Gb, but I still can't record more than 8-10 tracks on Garageband. I would dearly love a spanking new MacPro, but can hardly justify it for some fun home recording.

What's the performance like on the new 2.33GHz iMacs, especially for processor/memory hungry apps like Garageband? It's not like I use my my Mac for professional purposes, it's just that I'm looking for better performance from what is, after all, an iLife app.

Or should I just stick with my G4 (which I love - the anglepoise beats the fat screen in my view!) and just buy a purpose built digital home recorder?

Maybe there are other benefits to be had in the new iMac - I like the idea of a 24" screen for example. But it doesn't look like anything announced on 12 Sept is going to ring my bell.

[imitchellg5]

I would get a 7200 RPM hard drive since Garageband is very intensive on hard drives. And 8-10 tracks on Garageband is pretty hard on a 1GHz G4.

[Paul Stephen C.]

Thanks for that imitchellg5.

I hadn't thought of the HD speed, but I can see why, now that you mention it.

Originally Posted by imitchellg5

I would get a 7200 RPM hard drive since Garageband is very intensive on hard drives. And 8-10 tracks on Garageband is pretty hard on a 1GHz G4.